It seemed for a minute there that all the rumors about Arnold Schwarzenegger returning to acting were just going to result in The Governator, his planned comic book and 3D movie based on his governing of California that you definitely never asked to. But it looks like Arnold may be returning to what he does best after all; according to THR he is deep into negotiations with Lionsgate to make The Last Stand, a crime thriller in which he'd star as a bordertown sheriff trying to stop a Mexican drug cartel leader from crossing the border.

The film will be directed by Jee-Woon Kim, the Korean director behind The Good, The Bad and The Weird, a title that might be a better description for Schwarzenegger's career options at this point. He's also weighing doing reboots of Predator and Marathon Man, both the kind of ideas you might expect from a guy desperate to cash in on his past fame, not set for life thanks to international name recognition and the general good fortune of being a former elected official. The Last Stand, as generic an action idea as it may be, is definitely the most interesting project Schwarzenegger has considered yet, particularly since Kim's last film I Saw the Devil is a notoriously violent festival favorite and maybe the last thing you'd expect a politician to associate himself with. This project could be worthwhile and spare us from more talk of The Governator, so even if you're not terribly anxious for Schwarzenegger's return to acting, it's worth rooting for this one to actually happen.

There's also the potential for Schwarzenegger to team up with Antoine Fuqua on another action project, The Tomb, which Variety reports is in the works at Summit. But with Fuqua shooting a Tupac Shakur biopic this summer, The Last Stand seems a far likelier "first movie out of office" candidate. Given that Schwarzenegger seems to want more than anything to stay in the public eye at the moment, count on hearing more about one or both of these projects in the coming days.